Jack
and
Daniel involved in a loving and committed relationship, which usually
involves sex.

Rating:

NC-17

Category:

Established
Relationship. AU A/A Drama, Angst, H/C

Season/Spoilers:

Pretty
much the entire third season.

Synopsis:

There
is
no such thing as absolute evil - or good. Somewhere between the
extremes lies the truth.

Warnings:

This
story contains scenes of non-consentual sex. It is also a work in
progress.

Length:

oh, who knows.
I'll get
back to you.

Pure of Heart by
PhoenixE
Part 17

Click on 'New' to be taken straight to
the latest chapter posted.

"Our experts have been unable to find any form of tampering on any of
the cannons," Lord High Muckity Muck Chief Big Whoop Dee Whoop or
whatever Trevel loftily stated with a self-satisfied smug expression
Jack wanted to wipe right off her face.

With a steamroller.

Yeah, it wasn't like he hadn't been expecting her to take this sort
of 'we're so much better and smarter than you' high road with the
dumb primitives when they'd taken on the thankless task of beating
their heads against the brick wall of Tollan arrogance in an effort to
alert the them to their very probably imminent Goa'uld ass kicking – an
ass kicking becoming even more probable by the second because the dumb
asses wouldn't listen – but
still being so roundly condescended to and actively sneered at by this
snooty bitch…

Jack was heartily mentally reneging on the friendly impulse moving him
to get mixed up in this mess in the first place almost wishing they'd
kept their mouths shut and just let the Tollan get what was soon to be
coming to them. If he didn't need so desperately to be here for
Daniel's sake he'd already have told Trevel to stuff it and been taking
his kids back to the Tok'ra before the snakes hit the fan.

Arrogant assholes, the whole lot of them. They were laughing now,
but he was willing to wager a year's pay they wouldn't be laughing
quite so hard at the dumb Tau'ri's misguided attempt to warn them their
smug asses were in peril after the Goa'uld creamed all their fancy
popguns and they were left defenceless with snake all over their
faces. Yeah, he'd pay money to see THAT one, all right.

But no, as much as they had it coming he couldn't let it happen.
Jack couldn't honestly say he gave a toss about the Tollan or their
whole snotty planet but the place still had to be standing for Daniel
so he'd save their damned world in spite of them so Daniel would have
somewhere to escape to. For Daniel's sake Jack reluctantly
abandoned his pleasant fantasies of leaving the Tollan to some Instant
Hubric Karma and nudged the woman at his side to have a go at making
Trevel eat her words.

"Carter?" he prompted with the nudge. Go, girl.

As usual, the major did not disappoint.

"Maybe they were painting them, Sir," she quickly responded with a very
credible explanation for what she and Teal'c had observed.

That is – credible to anyone who wasn't too damned full of themselves
to be able to see beyond the end of their stuck up nose.

"I see no paint," Travel witheringly replied, her lips forming into an
extremely unflattering moue of disapproval.

"Sorry," Carter came back with a slight shrug, not daunted by the
either the face or the contemptuous attitude behind it. "It's an
Earth military expression," she explained. "It means
marking them as targets."

Dumb-ass, Jack grumbled to
himself. Quit sneering and
listen!

"Nor do I see any markings," Trevel airily announced with a
condescending eyebrow arch. Jack narrowed his eyes and glared
back at her, only just resisting the impulse to punch her in the face
for her last piece of outrageous pedantry.

And Trevel was claiming they
were the dumb ones….

Sam's eyes briefly darted toward him. Yeah, she couldn't believe
what she'd just heard either. But if the so-called advanced being
in front of her needed to be brought up to speed, she was definitely
still game.

"Well there are ways they can target the weapons without actually
leaving a mark," Sam patiently elaborated, not entirely able to conceal
her surprise at having to do so.

Not that her lah di dah ness caught it. She was still too busy
discounting scenarios her arrogance would not allow her to
entertain. And having a great time doing it too. Jack suppressed
the urge to spit the word 'Titanic' in her face. Waste of time,
he knew that, she wouldn't get the reference but for some strange
reason the supposedly unsinkable was springing to mind with a vengeance
at the moment.

"If so, the instant one of these canons is attacked the rest will
automatically locate the position of the attacker and destroy it."

Well, she just had an answer for everything didn't she? That
leaving them to their just comeuppance option was starting to look
better and better but Jack manfully refrained from telling her where
she could stick her ion canons and settled for pointing out
the obvious flaw in her argument.

"Unless they're all taken out simultaneously," he said meaningfully,
letting his attitude bleed out in a nasty smile.

Trevel flipped him one right back.

"If that were possible why then did the Goa'uld Heru'ur not do so when
he pursued Klorel?"

Oh, she was asking for it, she was so asking for it, maybe it wasn't on
to hit a woman but what other way was he going to knock some frigging
SENSE into her…

"Maybe because he didn't have a contingent on the planet's surface
targeting the weapons in advance," Carter helpfully suggested, but she
didn't believe Trevel would listen any more than he did.

After all it would seem you could lead a Tollan to water but you
couldn't make them see they needed to drink.

Trevel didn't disappoint, she was ready with yet another prideful
pronouncement.

"He didn't do it because it is impossible," she gloated. "It
would take but one of these devices to protect this planet from a
Goa'uld mothership and we have many more than that. Our
technology is superior in every way to theirs," she paused, her dark
eyes glittering with satisfied triumph as she delivered the coup de
grace.

Wait for it, wait for it…

"And to yours."

Ka-blam. That last sound you heard was that of a mind slamming
firmly shut.

Knowing at this point he had nothing left to lose Jack decided to throw
diplomacy out the window. Doing this the polite way wasn't
getting them anywhere and there was no way he was going to let the
Queen of the Tollan get away with letting the Goa'uld mess things up
for him and Daniel.

"Excuse me, your Tollan-ness," Jack barged forward, waving away the
beginnings of Trevel's latest dismissive remark. "Not meaning to be
disrespectful even though I'm sure as hell gonna sound that way, but
would you get your head out of your ass
and take a look at what's going on around here? Unless you're
saying Major Carter and Teal'c were lying – and I hope you're not
because that's something I'd have to take strenuous objection to – then
whether or not you believe anything was done to them doesn’t change the
fact my people observed Zippy's Jaffa skulking around your popguns here
and call me crazy, but I don't think they were taking holiday snaps to
send home to the kiddies! Now, no matter how low your opinion is
of either our technology or the Goa'ulds, if I were you, I'd be asking
myself if there's even a chance, I don't care how small, they could
have done anything at all to compromise those guns – excuse me Ma'am,
but is the fate of your entire world more important to you than your
determination to be just damned stupid?"

"Chancellor Trevel," Teal'c abruptly interjected, stepping in front of
Jack. "I was once in service to the System Lord Apophis," he
continued in a smoothly soothing voice, his solid sincerity, formally
respectful stance and earnest gravitas instantly drawing Trevel's
attention and mollifying her indignation to Jack's remarks.

"During my years as First Prime to Apophis it was my duty to serve the
false god in many different capacities and to undertake many covert
missions and acts of sabotage against his enemies," Teal'c informed
her, his dark eyes grave and deeply compelling. "I have some
experience of this particular strategy, and know not only how and by
what means it was probably accomplished, but can also be of assistance
in enabling you to detect the tampering. If you would permit me,
I can provide your scanning devices with the energy signature of the
targeting monitor the Jaffa of Zipacna would have used on the
canons. It would be my pleasure to be of service to you in this
regard, and to provide you with whatever information you require to
ascertain the truth."

"Please, Your Grace," Sam added her entreaty to Teal'c's. "We're
only trying to help. They were doing something
to them. What could it hurt to check?"

Trevel's imperious eyes raked over all of them, her expression stiff
and unreadable. Jack held his breath while the silence stretched,
unable to tell from her poker face whether he'd finally crossed the
line and she was about to give the lot of them the boot, or if
something, anything any of them had said had finally – actually made an
impression.

The helpful one, the one they wanted, not the more probable one that
was gonna get them evicted from the planet.

"I'm sorry about the 'head up your butt' – thing, " he blurted,
realising as soon as the words left his mouth saying anything more at
this juncture was probably not only much too late but was also likely
only going to serve to dig him in deeper.

"Your passion is to your credit," Trevel responded, immediately and
unexpectedly. "Even if the manner in which you express it leaves
something to be desired. Still, your concern is – noted," she
finished, her tight lips softening ever so slightly. Wasn't quite
a smile, but it was something.

"Yeah well, I got this job on the strength of my good looks, not my
diplomatic skills," Jack said with a shrug.

This time she did smile. "How fortunate for the universe," she
murmured before turning towards the ion canon behind them, and the
technician standing beside it. "Scan the canon," she crisply
ordered. "The Jaffa will assist you."

'So, that's it then," Jack exclaimed as he threw himself on the elegant
couch in the common area of the suite the Tollan had assigned to
them. "Guess what, we were right, yippee, we've saved the whole
damned planet, blew Zippy's plan out of the water, we're heroes, the
Goa'ulds are skunked, tragedy averted, basically the coast is clear so
there's nothing to worry about," he finished, scowling darkly at his
team mates.

"Yeah, I'm not buyin' it either," Sam agreed as she settled herself in
the armchair across from the couch. "You ask me the whole thing
was too damned easy."

"There was nothing easy about getting her highness there to go with the
program and do the damned scans," Jack snorted. "But unlike her
I'm thinking it's highly unlikely now he's been supposedly caught with
his dick in the cookie jar Zippy is gonna keep his promise to be good
from now on."

"But the Tollan are satisfied the Goa'uld plot against them has been
uncovered, the threat has been neutralized and we need have no further
security concerns for the duration of the Triad," Teal'c added,
inclining his sombre face toward SG-1's team leader.

"You have to wonder if that was the whole point of the exercise," Sam
mused.

"Don'tcha, though?" Jack grinned at her.

"Zipacna had to know we wouldn't trust him, and were watching and
waiting for them to do something,"
Sam continued. "So they gave us exactly what we were looking for.
They made a move. They never wanted or even expected this action
to succeed, and it was never supposed to. But what they did want was for us to catch them
at it, and turn them in, so it would look
like they'd tried to pull a fast one, just like we figured they
would - "

"And therefore, reassured we had discovered and eliminated the threat,
both we and the Tollan would consequently relax our vigilance," Teal'c
finished, nodding gravely. "Thereby allowing them the freedom to
execute their real strategy unsuspected and unopposed."

"Have I told you kids lately how danged proud I am of you?" Jack
beamed at both of them. "Trust no one, especially a snake.
I've taught you well. Makes my heart proud. Getting all
misty-eyed, here."

"Thank you, Sir," Sam said, shaking her head and grinning. "I
guess this means we'll be putting off the sight-seeing tour for a
little while yet."

"You got that right, Major," Jack growled. "I don't know what
those snakes are up to but I'll eat my hat if nuking this place was
their one and only game plan. Hell, if they're not after Daniel
and don't try and make some sort of a move on him when he gets here
I'll eat your hat too."

DANIEL!
Daniel, omigawd, where the HELL have you been, are you all right?

I'm okay, I'm okay, I've just been –
oh Jack, I've been trying but I could never seem – I've missed you so
much!

Hey, backatcha
babe! Listen – I -

Jack, all of you, are you on Tollana?

Yeah – we are –
how do you know -

Never mind about that now, that's not
important, are you – has anything happened?

What's going on,
Danny?

I had a visit from an old
friend. He gave me a friendly warning. All of you – watch
your backs, there. Please, be careful! I'll try and see what I
can find out on this end, from Apophis – ah – dammit, he's here!
Jack – I -

Daniel?
Daniel, what the hell are you talking about? Apophis? What
about Apophis? DANIEL?

'Sir?" Sam said worriedly.

Startled, Jack opened his eyes, stunned to find himself on his
feet. He didn't remember jumping up off the couch but obviously
he must have because here he was, standing in the middle of the room
and bellowing Daniel's name like a wild-eyed wild man.

"He's gone again," he cried, turning panicked eyes on the two people
staring at him, their faces sombre with concern. "He only had
time to give us a warning, then said 'he' was there – and now he's gone
again."

"Presumably 'he' is Chronos," Teal'c very nearly spat out the System
Lord's name.

"That would be my guess," Jack agreed, letting himself fall back down
on the couch as he expelled a weary sigh and angrily scrubbed his hands
over his face. He then dropped them clenched to his lap and
stared at them trying to control the anger and panic clamouring to
surge out of him and all over the suite. This was nothing to
worry about. Daniel was going to be okay. He had to
be. They were close, so damned close, just a little while longer
and they'd be together and Daniel would finally be free of that snakey
bastard and it was just – it was just - everything was going to work
out, it was, it just was, he wasn't going to believe in any other
outcome.

"He'll be okay, Sir," Sam murmured. "We'll get him back this
time. We will."

"God, Carter, I hope you're right," Jack choked and dropped his head in
his hands.

Omac glowered hatefully at the large and sumptuous room where Chronos
had sequestered him since their first and only interview.
He'd been here for hours, waiting, growing more and more impatient and
frankly bristling at the promise he'd made constraining him to remain
in this place. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to cast
aside his vow and use his phasing unit to scour the ship, find Daniel
and quickly remove him from the monster's clutches. Now, without
waiting for the System Lord to decide whether or not he actually
intended to hold to his own agreement to release Daniel into his
custody.

But he could not, should not, and as much as it galled him to be in any
way controlled, especially by such as Chronos, he would not break his
word. Chronos might not understand the meaning of honour, but he
did. One's principles could not lightly be set aside, especially
during the times when it was the most important they be upheld.
And the most difficult to do so.

"You are troubled, my Lord. Please, let me serve you. Tell
me what I might do to make you happy."

Omac heaved a weary sigh as he levelled a disapproving stare at the
young woman standing by the doorway, her beautiful face pale and
anxious. The 'servant' he'd been saddled with, he was hoping not,
but very likely for the duration of his stay here. She was very
young, very pretty, the long white gown she was wearing elegant in its
simplicity lending a surprising aura of dignity to her small but
shapely frame. She sported no other adornments but her elaborate
coif – an extraordinary quantity of gleaming blonde hair clustered
about her head in a fantastically complex arrangement of coils, curls
and plaits that had undoubtedly taken a great deal of time and effort
to accomplish.

She was exquisite. Such a fetching little jewel, to be trapped in this
terrible setting…

"Please do not call me that," Omac grumbled at her, rousing himself
from the distracting and somewhat distressing tangent his thoughts had
been proceeding along. He was a rational man, not given to such
fanciful or philosophical musings. Nor did he allow himself to be
moved towards pointless sentimentality by a stranger.

No, he did not permit others to touch him, to influence him, to
distract him from his carefully cultivated detachment, and the order
and stark serenity of his life. No, he did not allow the
disturbing passions and vagaries of less disciplined beings to
intrude. And yet, he could not help but wryly wonder as he looked
deeply into the large, anxious blue eyes begging for his understanding
as desperately as they looked for ways to please him if this was indeed
so, then he should not even be here.

The child continued to anxiously regard him while she wrestled with her
fear-inspired demons. What would it be like, to live with such
never-ending uncertainty, such omnipresent terror? To know the
one constant of your reality was your very ability to draw your next
breath was entirely dependent upon the whim of heartless creatures who
utterly controlled your fate?

He couldn't begin to imagine and suddenly, did not want to.

She blinked rapidly, heroically schooling the alarm his unthinking
rebuke had engendered as she quickly sought to correct her error.
"My apologies – it – it was not my intention to offend," she hastily
offered.

"You did not," Omac was as quick to reassure her as he was to take
himself to task for upsetting her. "My name is Omac. I require
you call me nothing else."

"Omac," she smiled slightly, with sweet shyness as she pronounced the
unfamiliar name. "As you command. How may I serve you –
Omac?"

Omac resisted the impulse to simply dismiss her, even though her
presence was an annoyance he desperately wished to dispense with as
quickly as possible. He did not know how his rejection of her
would be perceived, and didn't want to risk her incurring any sort of
punishment because of him.

"I do not wish – " he started to say, and then stopped, uncertain of
what to tell her.

She took a step toward him, her entire body thrilling with a sudden
audacity he could see sparking in her eyes. "You've come for
Daniel, haven't you?" she whispered, glancing about her as if she
feared being overheard, even though they were quite alone in the room.

"Yes," he admitted before he could stop himself.

"Please hurry," she whispered again, the urgency of her plea clutching
at his heart.

"What is Daniel to you?" he demanded.

She drew herself up, her blue eyes proudly meeting his without
flinching. She might be a slave, but not in spirit. There
was fire here, and great courage. Omac approved.

"He is my friend," She proudly informed him. "He has been most
kind to us, often at great cost to himself. Though there is
little hope of freedom for us, it should not be so for him. I
would see him restored to those he loves, and happy once more.
Can you do this for him? Will you?" she implored, taking another
step toward him, casting aside all thoughts of personal consequences as
she finished her impassioned plea.

"I will try, child," he assured her with a heavy sigh. "I will do
everything within my power to make it so."

Her brilliant, almost blinding smile of gratitude warmed him.
"What is your name, child?" he asked, giving her what he hoped was a
warm and reassuring smile.

"Ariana. My name is Ariana."

"Ariana," Omac echoed, smiling at her once more as he patted the
spot on the couch beside him. "Come, sit with me. Tell me
about Daniel."

copyrightPhoenixE,
2003.disclaimerStargate
SG-1 and
its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions,
Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko
Productions. These stories are
for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No
copyright infringement is intended. The original characters,
situations, and story are
the property of the author. These stories may not be posted elsewhere
without
the consent of the author. Copyright on images remains with the above
named
rightsholders.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]